Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John Edwards answers questions during a rally at the University of Wisconson at Green Bay in Green Bay, Wis. Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Photo: CHARLIE RIEDEL

Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John Edwards answers...

Edwards struck a chord with '2 Americas' speech / Defining message has propelled him into the No. 2 spot

"One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. .. . One favored, the other forgotten. ... One privileged, the other burdened," he said.

From the moment Edwards delivered that speech, his campaign leaped forward. He surged to a second-place finish in Iowa, tied for third in the New Hampshire primary, won the primary in his native state of South Carolina and finished second in the subsequent contests in which he has competed. Now, he's on the short list of Democratic candidates still in the race, as Edwards prepares for campaign fund-raising appearances today and Friday in Los Angeles.

With that speech and its aftermath, the 50-year-old former trial lawyer became a presence in the campaign, a populist whose message seemed to capture the essence of who he is and why he is running. And he put into words what voters were feeling but had not heard.

It can happen just like that -- a presidential candidate campaigns for months and, after dozens of speeches, public appearances and face-to-face exchanges with voters, hones his message until, in a single moment, the candidate and the voters are on the same wavelength.

It doesn't work always and certainly not for everyone, but it happened for Edwards. The people who have been with him throughout the campaign say it happened when he delivered the "two Americas" speech.

"I think the message itself was always there in his stump speech," said Roxanne Conlin, former candidate for governor and Edwards' co-chair in Iowa, who traveled step-for-step with Edwards in every part of Iowa, sometimes making a dozen stops a day.

"But the focus and the way he articulated it did change. The 'two Americas' resonated with voters, and it was reformulated and refocused at exactly the time voters were beginning to pay attention. It was a confluence of factors that energized people in Iowa," Conlin said.

At the same time, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean began making critical comments about each other and the other candidates.

The negative campaigning prompted Iowa voters to look elsewhere for an affirmative message, and they found it in the "two Americas" speech.

For months before, Edwards had been on the edges of the "two Americas" message, referring in several speeches to two school systems, one for the privileged and one for everyone else.

"That's where it came from," said David Ginsberg, communications director for the Edwards campaign. "It really was an organic thing that came out of the two school systems. In early December, we sort of realized that everything we were talking about sits within this larger point he was making."

Edwards' speechwriters put together a major address, the candidate fine- tuned it, and it connected.

"When Edwards started talking about two Americas and when he committed to being optimistic and positive, he not only created an energy in the crowd, but he fed off that energy. You saw not only the candidate change, but the staff and the campaign change," said Donnie Fowler, a veteran political operative who worked in both Iowa and South Carolina on Democratic campaigns and for the state party organizations.

"He was able to articulate exactly what he wanted to do at just the point when most voters were starting to tune in. People were hungry for this message, not just that there are 'two Americas' but how we go about fixing it," Ginsberg said.

But it was more than a confluence of message and events, it was a convergence of message and man.

"It's who he is," Fowler said of the first-term senator. "Politicians always succeed when they are themselves, when they are who they are, when they don't try to be something else. Even if voters don't see a candidate anywhere but on television, they're smart enough to tell if he's being himself."

Since he entered the campaign, Edwards has been the candidate of regular folks, talking about his modest upbringing in every forum. His father was a mill worker and his mother worked in a shop. He worked his way through college and law school, becoming one of the nation's leading plaintiff's attorneys, fighting giant corporations on behalf of ordinary citizens.

It's a profession that made him rich, but it also put him at odds with corporate America. He proved successful at convincing a jury of 12 citizens to bring huge judgments against companies he accused of indifference, greed or injustice.

Those who know Edwards as a lawyer say his greatest courtroom moments came when he spoke directly to the jury, laying out in simple, earnest words, the lives at stake.

"During my years as an attorney," Edwards wrote in the preface to the autobiographical "Four Trials," a 2004 book describing four of his cases, "I developed a respect for juries as microcosms of our great and varied American society -- where someone of sophistication and privilege sometimes sits right beside a man who has never left the county where he was born and wouldn't complain about that fact for the world. Like every person in our society, every person on a jury has supreme importance."

"This is not a corporate attorney in a black suit," said Burlingame attorney Joe Cotchett, himself one of the nation's leading trial lawyers and a top financial backer of Edwards.

"This is not the image of a trial lawyer as a guy with a big cigar, chasing ambulances," Cotchett said. "He is a real populist persona."

Edwards' speech

This excerpt is a central theme of Sen. John Edwards' stump speech as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination:

"Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life. One America -- middle-class America -- whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America -- narrow-interest America -- whose very wish is Washington's command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even Congress and a president."